Where do you not feel free?

Notice & soften & notice & soften & notice & soften & notice &

Image from pinterest

I’ve been in quite an open-hearted sharing mode lately. Ever since I got back from Paris, I kind of just feel like saying exactly what I am thinking, exactly what I mean, exactly what I want to say. This has always been a dream of mine. Even when I was young, I had strong feelings, strong thoughts. I saw very clearly. Almost painfully so. People would call me an old soul and mature for my age; but I think the flip-side of that was this sort of strange plague of noticing way more that I felt like I should have. And seeing through all the strange energetic webs and underlying currents that were, quite honestly, just a bit overwhelming to bear then. Especially as I tried to fit in and belong and be cool and have all the right signals myself. Because I understood what was going on around me, I knew how to participate. And I was very good at it.

But in my heart, I was always a very pensive and sensitive soul. Always. And I just don’t think I felt safe enough to be myself until I was like, 24. And even then, I basically had to aggressively dislodge myself from the context of my life at the time, and rebuild myself from scratch to do so. I made a lot of changes; I started spending 80-90% of my time alone. I wrote a lot. I read a lot. I stopped drinking alcohol. I wanted complete mental clarity; I wanted to know myself completely. And I honestly think I achieved that goal. I think I met myself in my fullness. I understood the parts of myself I was hiding, I understood the ways in which I did not feel free.

Writing on the internet was wildly liberating in this sense. I wasn’t sure then who I was writing for; I only knew that I needed to write. I needed to write. The need felt visceral, intense. It was as though these streams of words were coursing through me, looking for a home outside of myself. It felt like, in a way that really is difficult to put words to, that I just needed to be a vessel for what was coming through me. It felt like the words, the messages, the ideas, were larger than me. And all I needed to do, was remain humble and disciplined enough to show up every day and let these words stream through me.

I got pretty good at this. I am, what, nearly 150 essays and 20K tweets deep into this process now? You could safely say I have opened my throat chakra and know how to say what I mean on the internet. And it was a journey. It wasn’t easy at first. But now, I have to tell you, it is pretty easy. I hope this gives you, dear reader, hope that you, too, can conquer the ways in which you do not feel free by simply doing things that scare you over and over until they do not scare you anymore. And then, you just have the privilege of working on your craft and getting better, for the love of the game. Instead of because you need to transcend your fear or blocks to show yourself that you can.

And that freedom—to just do what you want to do when you want to do it without getting in your own way about it—is so blissful. So blissful! So worth it. Oh, I hope you try. I hope you go for what you know you want to do. It’s just the best feeling to actually be in the flow of doing it, once you have moved through all the mental resistance in the way of it.

Because so often, that is all it is. Just inner world stuff. The external world literally wants you to thrive. There is so much for you here, so much you can do with your mind, with your time, with your talent. So many people want to help you, support you, receive your brilliance. I want you to reach out and grasp what is for you. But you need to give yourself permission. You need to notice where you do not feel free, and you need to get curious about it. You need to realize that, actually, it is safe to be who you are. Safe to go after what you want. Safe to share your ideas with the world. Safe to be as ambitious as you wish to be. Safe to be silly and creative, as well. Safe to be yourself.

But no matter how many times you read those words, or other ones like it, it won’t fully ‘make sense’ to you, until you step onto the path of doing what you feel called to do, and actually doing it. And realizing that despite your greatest fears, you are still alive, you are safe, and actually, this is quite nice, and actually, I could keep doing this!

It’s a deal made by the universe that you need to do the thing you’re afraid of to realize it’s not that scary and you are capable of it! I do not make the rules, I am just the messenger.